Akira Kurosawa's cinema is large in every sense of the word. He often spent a year or more on preparation, sometimes had enormous sets built, popularized the three-hour movie, drew on elite literary sources like Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky, and tackled the big questions centering on social injustice and the more tragic aspects of the human condition. It's no coincidence that major western films were inspired by, or practically copy, Kurosawa's originals (Magnificent Seven's debt to Seven Samurai, and A Fistful of Dollars' to Yojimbo, come to mind).